Personal journal helps witness in court

You’ve heard it time and again: Keep a journal. Write down your thoughts and feelings. For some people it is just hard to write regularly but keeping a journal daily is apparently paying off for federal court witness Jullie Ulloa, former president of the defunct Saipan University.

Ulloa depended largely on her diary when she was asked to recount events during her presidency at SU from August to October 2003.

“I kept a journal to express what I felt and to keep track of what went on,” said Ulloa during direct examination by assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Smith last week.

Ulloa’s journal was one of the items taken in custody by the prosecution to build its case against SU founder Soon Kyung Park, who currently faces fraud charges in connection with his recruitment of over 100 Chinese students last year.

Ulloa said that she recorded in her journal almost all events that took place during her three-month stay at SU.

By referring to her journal, Ulloa was able to tell the court when and how many Chinese students arrived on Saipan, whom she was meeting, what the complaints of students were, and how terribly she failed to get financial support from Park to wisely manage the institution.

On Sept. 12, 2003, Ulloa said that she met with SU consultant and former Northern Marianas College president Agnes McPhetres and a certain James about “a misleading” print ad in China.

She said she had expressed great concern about inaccurate ad pictures.

She said that James, reportedly a former immigration employee, informed Park about the misleading information.

Through James, Park allegedly assured Ulloa that the matter would be addressed immediately.

Ulloa said the information was taken off the website but it popped up again after sometime.

Ulloa, in her testimony, said that she had no direct access to Park. She would always communicate with him through James.

Ulloa said that SU welcomed 53 students on Sept. 8, 2003.

She said that when she saw that SU could not provide proper education and decent accommodation to students, she worked hard but to no avail to convince Park not to bring in anymore students from China.

Since it was difficult to locate Park, she said she would send memos and letters to Park in English and Korean to wherever he may be.

She said that Park had been upset when she would fax her letters of concerns overseas particularly in China.

Ulloa had written in her journal as well as in her regular letters to Park about the students’ complaints against misrepresentation about SU building and course offerings and their demand for tuition refund.

Ulloa said she made sure that Park would let students know that taking jobs is not allowed in the CNMI.

Despite her advice, though, she said that Park went ahead with the recruitment and brought in additional students to Saipan.

The students allegedly showed proof that they signed up for a work and study program with Park.

On Sept. 27, she said that eight students arrived, while on Oct. 5, 35 came on island.

In her journal, Ulloa referred to as “cycle 1 students” those who arrived in September and “cycle 2” those who came in October.

A cycle 2 student, she said, “blurted out in anger” insisting that “I came here to work, not to study.”

SU’s Park allegedly collected $5,000 to $10,000 from each of nearly 100 recruits from China.

Ulloa resigned from SU on Oct. 15.

Park replaced her with Jess Taisague, who served as the president until the SU was closed down in late last year following the arrest of Park by federal authorities.

Park is attending the trial with his lawyers Pedro Atalig and Joseph Arriola.